Antonio A. Casilli is full professor of sociology at the Institute Polytechnique de Paris (more precisely, at the department of Social and Economic Science of its Grande École of telecommunications, Telecom Paris). He is an associate researcher at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, where in February 2024 he was elected as an overseas fellow at the Churchill College.
Research
He is the co-founder of the DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor) research program and of INDL (International Network on Digital Labor). His main research foci are social networks, digital platforms, and digital labor. He has conducted fieldworks in Africa, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and coordinated several international research projects. He is a member of the Interdisciplinary Institute on Innovation (i3, a research unit of the French CNRS) and an associate researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society.
Publications
In addition to several scientific publications in French, English, and Italian, he is the author of the book Waiting for Robots. The Hired Hands of Automation, University of Chicago Press, 2025 (updated edition of his award-winning En attendant les robots, Éditions du Seuil, 2019), an inquiry into the working conditions of underpaid humans who make artificial intelligence possible. His previous books include: Trabajo, conocimiento y vigilancia ([Work, Knowledge, and Surveillance], Editorial del Estado, 2018), a collection of 5 essays on technology and society; Le phénomène “pro-ana” ([The ‘Pro-Ana Phenomenon); Presses des Mines, 2016; with P. Tubaro), a book about e-health, online censorship, and problematic speech in social networks. Qu’est-ce que le digital labor? ([What is digital labor?], Editions de l’INA, 2015; with D. Cardon), a double-headed essay on how digital platforms change the way we work; Against the Hypothesis of the End of Privacy (Springer, 2014; with P. Tubaro and Y. Sarabi), a socio-computational pamphlet about the blurred lines between public and private in social media; Les liaisons numériques ([Digital relationships]; Éditions du Seuil, 2010), an investigation on how the Web reconfigures social behavior; Stop Mobbing (DeriveApprodi, 2000; reprint 2001), an inquiry into communicational violence in cognitive capitalism; La Fabbrica Libertina (Manifesto Libri, 1997; 2nd edition 2000), “a marxist/cyborg reading of the links between industrialism and sadism”. (See the complete list of his publications)
Media features
He frequently contributes expert commentaries on technology and society to international media outlets (BBC, Wired, Le Monde, Libération, Il Corriere, Domani, France Télévisions, Radio France, Arte, Times of India…), making academic research more accessible while helping combat misinformation. He has co-authored two documentary films based on his research: Invisibles. Exploitation in the Digital World of Work (Invisibles, les travailleurs du clic, 2020), and In the Belly of AI (Les sacrifiés de l’IA, 2025).